Horn, Roberts take big leads

Election results

Longtime county supervisors Ron Roberts and Bill Horn successfully fended off the strongest attempts in years to unseat them.

Roberts held a wide lead over Stephen Whitburn, a public affairs manager for the American Red Cross Blood Services, who had mounted an aggressive campaign for the county’s District 4, according to partial returns Tuesday night.

The race for North County’s District 5 was considerably closer, but Horn also had secured a solid lead over Steve Gronke, a Vista city councilman and teacher. It was the first time either Roberts or Horn had been forced into a fall runoff since the 1990s. Still, the challengers faced their own obstacles. Roberts and Horn had strong ties in the region, and campaign disclosure forms showed they had strong fundraising advantages.

Roberts said in an interview Tuesday night that he felt “very appreciative.”

“We don’t want to prematurely declare a victory, but the voters have been extremely generous to me, and they continue to be and I appreciate it,” he said. “It makes you want to work even harder.”

Horn declared victory with about half of precincts reported, saying it was "pretty clear" that his campaign would prevail.

"We’re holding pretty consistent," he said in an interview. "I stand on my record, you have 16 years of me being in office and the fiscal conservative approach to government and protecting the taxpayers. I think that’s a solid message. It’s not very glamorous."

Earlier in the evening Tuesday, Cody Campbell, Gronke’s campaign consultant, had predicted a long night of monitoring results.

Horn’s “campaign put in a lot of effort very early on,” Campbell said. “We put in a lot of effort starting a little later, so I think the poll results are going to be a lot more in Steve’s favor. A lot of people turned in ballots today. Those results are going to be much more favorable for Steve.”

Whitburn admitted after early returns that his opponent’s lead looked like a “high hurdle to overcome.” After a long day of knocking on doors, he said he was surprised the results weren’t closer.

“We’ll have to see if we can make up that big of a difference,” Whitburn said. “All you can do is do your best and try as hard as you can to do the right thing and reach as many voters as possible, and it looks like it’s going to be tough for us.”

During the campaign, Whitburn had played up the fact that he was a Democrat running against Roberts, a Republican, in the largely Democratic District 4. To the north, Gronke, an independent, and Horn, a Republican, were vying to represent the heavily Republican District 5.

Whitburn had also pushed hard on the idea that the incumbents had lost touch and gotten “too comfortable,” and Gronke said he would bring integrity and responsible leadership to the position.

The challengers had argued the county should do better at delivering services such as food stamps and do more to help reduce unemployment rates. Meanwhile, Roberts and Horn touted the county’s strong financial condition compared to some other local jurisdictions. They pointed to major infrastructure projects, such as the first phase of a new, $188.5 million county office complex and a recent $25 million federal grant to train low-income workers.

Whitburn and Gronke were the first candidates to face the two supervisors in a runoff since Roberts prevailed in one in 1994 and Horn did in 1994 and 1998.